This pair of animals was very likely once part of an integral fitting. Compare with a pair of corner fittings comprising paired animals of near identical design set at right angles, below right angled cornices, formerly in the Minkenhof, Alice Boney and Stephen Junkunc III and Stephen Junkunc IV Collections, now in the Pierre Uldry Collection, illustrated in Chinesisches Gold und Silber, Rietberg Museum, Zurich, 1994, exhibition catalogue, no. 23.

These were probably part of a set of four mounts; two other single mounts are published; see Loehr, Relics of Ancient China from the Collection of Dr. Paul Singer, exhibition catalogue no. 71, for an identical example; another in the Stoclet Collection was illustrated by Visser, Asiatic Art in the private collections of Holland and Belgium, New York and Amsterdam, 1948, pls. 63 and 126 but these beasts have wings and arched crests on the heads.